Exxon Valdez 25th Anniversary: 5 Facts About the Historic Spill

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Monday (March 24) marks the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez
oil spill, which spewed 11 million gallons (40 million liters) of
crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound.

The disaster was the worst oil spill in U.S. history until the
Deepwater Horizon spill surpassed it in terms of volume in
2011. Today, it's still possible to dig holes in beaches along
the Prince William Sound and
find pockets of oil left over from 1989.

The Exxon Valdez, first launched in 1986, was a mammoth oil
tanker that stretched 987 feet (300 meters) in length. Four
months after it ran aground on Alaska's Bligh Reef, the ship was
returned to a dry dock in San Diego, Calif. But the vessel
wouldn't become scrap metal until 2012. Instead it endured
several name changes and makeovers. Its post-spill identities
included the SeaRiver Mediterranean, the Dong Fang
Ocean and the Oriental Nicety, according to an
obituary published in the journal Nature.

2. Wildlife suffered

Photos of oiled seabirds and otters have become spill clichés but
animals were indeed hurt by the Exxon Valdez disaster. An
estimated 250,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters and 300 harbor seals
were killed in the immediate aftermath, according to the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Two groups of
killer whales that swam through the affected parts of the Prince
William Sound suffered population losses up to 41 percent in the
year after the disaster, according to a 2008 study
published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.
Sea otter populations have finally bounced back to pre-spill
levels, the U.S. Geological Survey announced only this year. The
herring population — once a lucrative catch for the fishing
industry in the region — crashed and has never fully recovered,
the
Anchorage Daily News reported.

Some small areas of the Prince William Sound were intentionally
not cleaned because the
oil spill offered environmental officials a chance to study
cleanup measures, comparing how untreated areas fared against
regions cleaned with high-pressure, hot water washing hoses. This
type of aggressive washing works, but it can kill plants and
animals in the long term and short term, officials confirmed
after the Exxon Valdez spill, according to
NOAA. Cleanup workers often combine this technique with other
methods like containing and collecting oil so that it doesn't
disperse elsewhere.

4. Oil still lingers

More than two decades after the spill, oil pockets are still
found below the surface of beaches, often in places protected
from winds and waves, which would help to break down and remove
remaining crude. Along the Shelikof Strait coastline southwest of
the spill site, researchers recently found pockets of oil from
the Exxon Valdez accident. The oil was hardly weathered, as it
had been sheltered behind stable boulders, the scientists said in
a presentation at the American Geophysical Union's annual Ocean
Sciences Meeting.

5. It prompted the Oil Pollution Act

Largely in response to the Exxon Valdez spill, the Oil Pollution
Act became law in 1990. The move required oil companies to make
contingency plans to prevent future spills and contain them
should a spill occur. It also created the Oil Spill Liability
Trust Fund to help pay for the cleanup of future disasters,
granting up to $1 billion per spill.